Page 581 of Shadowblood Souls
Smoky essence plumes up as Steel’s bulky form crashes to the ground. The demon’s body sprawls lifelessly on the asphalt.
A cry breaks from my throat that I mostly hear from inside my head. I whirl toward the shadowblood shooter with his reptilian face, the sound condensing into a killing shriek in my lungs.
But before I can heave it from my mouth, searing light lances into my eyes. A voice that must be Nadia’s hollers as loud as the siren as she flings her blinding power in all directions, even harsher than I’ve felt it before.
With my vision whited out, I stagger and bump into a body beside me. I can’t tell if they’re friend or foe.
My men are around me—I feel their presence through the marks on my chest. The little quivers of emotion that reach me echo my disorientation.
The rogue shadowbloods must be blinded too, but how much does that matter when they were already put off balance by the piercing sirens and Andreas’s projected memories? Nadia isn’t hurting them so much as putting the rest of us on an equal playing field.
Ajax’s voice careens through my thoughts.Sorsha wants to know what’s going on down there. Do you need her to step in?
Do we? At that point it’ll become a barbeque rather than a rescue mission.
My heart stutters with the sense of our plan falling apart.Not yet,I think at Ajax.We might still be able to pull this off.
I swipe at my eyes and grope through the scene that’s alternately blotchy and completely hazed with more bursts of Nadia’s light—and the sirens dwindle.
With my dulled hearing, it takes me a second to realize that they haven’t all gotten quieter. It’s just that one has cut out completely. A victorious shout rises from the stumbling crowd of shadowbloods, telling me the destruction was purposeful.
I don’t know how they did it, but one of our opponents managed to use their power to cut off the device.
It’s true that we don’t know where all of them came from before they were turned into shadowbloods or what they’re really feeling under the anger. We also don’t know most of the powers they can wield.
We thought we orchestrated this battle with every advantage, but in some ways we were going in blind from the start.
My vision clears enough for me to make out one of the shadowblood teens just a couple of feet away from me. I jab the syringe I’m still clutching into his back and squeeze.
He spins around, making me lose my grip, but the effects are already kicking in. Even as he tries to spring at me, his knees buckle under him. He topples over unconscious on the ground.
One more down, God knows how many more to tackle.
Ajax’s voice reaches my head again.She says it looks bad down there. She’s heading in.
No, wait?—
Before I can finish my protest, fiery wings flash against the sky above us. Sorsha’s voice rings out. “Clear the crowd! Give me room!”
Room to burn them all. My gut lurches in recognition of her meaning, but I heave myself backward instinctively. No part of me is interested in getting incinerated.
But I can’t help letting loose my protest aloud at the same time. “No!”
Where’s Nadia—Tegan—Devon? Can I at least pull them to safety? If they were away from the former inmates’ influence for a little while, surely?—
Sorsha swoops lower, her phoenix fire sweeping an orange glow and a waft of heat over our milling bodies. Has she hesitated because of my protest?
She raises her hand to fling out a stream of flames. At the same instant, a feral bellow like I’ve heard during our past fights with the rogues careens through the air.
In the milling crowd, I catch sight of the man with the skull-and-snake tattoo—the one Nadia called Cutler, who seems to be the leader of the rampaging shadowbloods. His head is tipped back and his mouth stretched impossibly wide.
His roar must carry a supernatural force. Something invisible smacks into Sorsha, snapping her head to the side. Her body sways off-kilter.
“Sorsha!” With a roar and a swish of black feathers, Thorn hurtles out of the night. He catches the phoenix woman in his arms before she can drop from the sky.
I don’t know what that jolt of power did to her, but it’s obviously disabled her for the moment. And as I whip backtoward the crowd of wayward shadowbloods, the second siren cuts out.
More silver bolts flash through the night from the crossbow-gun the snake-man is wielding. Some rattle against the asphalt, and a couple strike his own allies, but in the space of a few heartbeats, one carves a smoking path through Crag’s gargoyle thigh as he plummets to join the fray.
